A friend of mine told me about a friend of hers who tried out a new class this week at the yoga studio she regularly attends.

The male teacher, a stranger to her, had undressed slowly during the class, stripping off various layers of clothing, and by the end he was only wearing a jock strap.

Her friend was very uncomfortable witnessing this man shed his garments one piece at a time. She wondered how he could think his behavior was acceptable, and she was stunned by the boldness of it. How come he didn’t know what his boundaries were?

I wondered what made this yoga guy think that showing off his buttocks in a million different poses was okay with his students. Why didn’t he just call his class “Near Naked Yoga?”

To me the whole thing smacks of a man out of control, flaunting his body when no one asked for his body to be flaunted.

This flasher/teacher moment sounds like an episode from Larry David’s Curb YourEnthusiasm. I can just picture the students catching each other’s eyes and grimacing, but not saying anything until afterward, when they commiserated with one another in the parking lot.

Some people will really act out if they have an audience—and an unsuspecting, captive one was perfect for this man’s agenda.

Sounds like this man/boy needs to turn his focus from Yoga to Life Modelling. At least when the class arrives they’ll know what they came for and why they paid to look at him.

Are you the kind of person who likes to talk to strangers? It’s true that for many people it’s very uncomfortable. Granted, when we see a stranger we have no idea what will happen when we talk to them. But then again the other choice, not to say anything, creates anxiety too. Usually it’s worth the risk to initiate a conversation, or at least share a smile, and it will probably improve your day.

That’s what happened to me at Jiffy Lube recently. I got there early in the morning expecting an empty waiting room and then saw that I was not the first to arrive. There was a tall, thin black man in his thirties already seated, looking intently at his cell phone. “Hi,” I said to him.

“Hi,” he said back. I could tell he was surprised I’d spoken.

I sat down and started looking for promo code coupons for Jiffy Lube on my iPhone. “Have you found any promo codes for Jiffy Lube coupons?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “You can do that? I didn’t know that.”

“Yep,” I said. “A friend of mine told me and everywhere I go now, I pull out my iPhone and look for coupons. I’ve found a lot. But sometimes they’re expired.”

I saw him scrolling through his phone checking too.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “I see a ten-dollar one. Oops, it’s expired. Here’s a five-dollar one.” He smiled at me and held his phone for me to see.

“Thanks,” I said, typing the URL into my phone.

A mechanic called him up to the counter. After he paid with his phone coupon, he turned to me and said, “Hey, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I knew we both felt better talking to each other. We could have sat in that room with that awkward silence of two humans stuck in a space saying nothing and wishing one of us had had the courage to break the ice.

Shortly after I made my friend in a Jiffy, I discovered an article called “Hello, Stranger” in The New York Times about the importance to people’s health in making connections with strangers. Research shows that every hello to a stranger improves our lives and theirs. If we keep this up, we might even change our world.

Have you ever felt better after talking to a stranger? I would love to hear from you.